New Children's Intracranial Injury Decision Aid Score Predicts Need for ICU Admission

Using data from the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network, investigators developed a risk score for determining need for intensive care unit (ICU) admission among children with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) who had intracranial injury (ICI) on computed tomography (CT). Patients were considered to need ICU admission if they received neurosurgical intervention, were intubated for >24 hours for mTBI, or died from mTBI.

Of more than 15,000 children with mTBI (Glasgow Coma Scale [GCS] score 13–15) who received emergency department head CT, 839 (6%) had an ICI, most commonly nondepressed skull fracture, contusion/intraparenchymal hematoma, or subdural hematoma. Of those with an ICI, 73 (9%) met criteria for ICU admission: 70 (8%) …